LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - As World Liberty Financial raised more than half a billion dollars, President Donald Trump’s family took control of the crypto venture and grabbed the lion’s share of those funds, aided by governance terms that industry experts say favor insiders.
Launched last fall, World Liberty’s goal is to allow people to access financial services using cryptocurrencies and without intermediaries like banks in what is called decentralized finance, or DeFi. But it has yet to launch a public platform and has reported only a small staff, a review of the project shows.
Even so, World Liberty said in mid-March it had raised $550 million selling so-called governance tokens. Most of those sales took place after Trump’s election win in November, Reuters calculations show.
The tokens, which go by the symbol $WLFI, give holders the right to vote on changes to the project’s underlying code and to signal their opinion on its direction and plans. They cannot be traded.
As its fundraising got traction, World Liberty disclosed in January that the Trump family had taken control of the business, a review of changes in the fine print on World Liberty’s website shows. Two of its co-founders, crypto entrepreneurs Zak Folkman and Chase Herro, were replaced as the controlling parties of World Liberty by an entity in which the Trump family holds a 60% stake.
The changes have not been previously reported.
Overall, the Trump family now has a claim on 75% of net revenues from token sales and 60% from World Liberty operations once the core business gets going. The arrangement means the Trump family is currently entitled to about $400 million in fees. After World Liberty's co-founders take their cut, the crypto venture will be left with 5% of the $550 million raised to date to build the platform, according to Reuters calculations.
The arrangements, including the Trump family’s large share of the project’s revenues and the non-tradeable nature of the governance tokens, make World Liberty unusually centralized for the industry, according to a survey of the practices of the five largest DeFi lending platforms and interviews with four U.S. academics who study the crypto industry.
"It's hard for me to see any economic benefit to the owner of these tokens," said Jim Angel, an associate professor at Georgetown University who has written about DeFi regulation.
David Krause, a longtime finance professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee who recently published a study of World Liberty, said that the structure of the project “pretty much excludes public investors or token holders from any meaningful financial participation.”
A White House spokesperson referred questions about World Liberty to the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization's chief legal officer and the president's two older sons, who are executives at the company, did not respond to requests for comment.
The Trump Organization announced in January that the president's investments, assets and business interests would be held in a trust managed by his children and he would play no role in day-to-day operations or decision-making. The family's business also retained an attorney to serve as an ethics adviser to "avoid any perceived conflicts of interest."
Folkman and Herro did not reply to Reuters questions in person and in writing. In a post on social media platform X on March 14, World Liberty said it “is a DeFi project with a tremendous mission to build and democratize a new financial system for the benefit of millions.”
At a conference in February, Herro said the plan was to open crypto investing to everyday Americans such as teachers, dentists and firemen. His business partner, Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, has complained about the family being excluded from traditional banking in the aftermath of his father's first term.
CRYPTO PRESIDENT
The Trump family’s investment in World Liberty ties the personal fortunes of a sitting U.S. president to an asset class that sits at the outer edges of both risk and regulation.
Trump has promised to be the “crypto president,” who will popularize its mainstream use in America. He has said he backs crypto because it can improve the banking system and increase the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
Follow for Crypto news.
Post a Comment